Please take a moment and make a financial contribution to TheFunded. If we have helped you, help us with resources to further grow the both the site and our entrepreneur training program, The Founder Institute.

We were very impressed with Insight Venture Partners. We met two partners and 1 associate, and all of them "competent" in our field. They ended giving us a term sheet a couple of days after we met. The following are in order and accurate;

1. Termsheet Signed
2. Asked the team to think about being acquired by a Portfolio Company
3. New Termsheet Signed (Portfolio Company and Insight)
4. Last minute left us at the table with 1 month runway
5. Came back a week later with a 50% reduction in valuation
6. We had no choice we signed and sold the company for pennies on the dollar

I had a frank and open conversation with Insight on the basis that they were interested in investing our company. I subsequently discovered that they had already signed a term sheet with a competitor and were just fishing for competitive information.

Posted by
Nick1
on 2010-02-04

PUBLIC:

I found Insight great to work with - they have an excellent knowledge of the software business and can help bring your company to the next level.

Most importantly i found that Insight was flexible and responsive when doing the deal. In addition, after the deal, they would stick to the 'gentlemans agreement'. Even though certain things had not been agreed in writing, or for example when there were minor accounting mistakes on my part - they would be understanding and give me the benefit of the doubt. On the whole i found them very fair during and after the deal.

Within Insight, I worked with Jeff Horing, Mike Triplett and Alex Crisses all of whom are honest and dependable guys.

Received and unsolicited call from an associate from Insight Venture Partners. The associate seemed to be intelligent and understand our space. Said that we came to their attention from one of their portfolio companies. Careful not to share too much information. Stated that they have a market cap of $3.2B and invest $8-100M. Wanted to keep in touch when we were closer to our "A" round next year. Ambivalent about them given the limited interaction.

I had originally pitched George McCulloch and his Analysts. Both guys were easy to pitch, great at getting back to me, and didn't over burden me with requests to supply a lot of company confidential information. George let me know that we are good fit, but weren't quite large enough for Insight and if I wanted to, I could check back in 6 months when we were larger.

Posted by
anon
on 2007-10-22

PUBLIC:

Insight Ventures typically invests only $10M+ in companies, so if you're looking for less than that then they shouldn't be on your shortlist. That said, they are starting to flirt with smaller financings, and my experience with them so far has been positive. They have lots of connections, so even if they don't fund you they might refer you to new business or another funding source.

Posted by
gnaspo
on 2007-09-06

PUBLIC:

I have worked with Insight for almost three years. I have worked on a couple of their portfolio companies and have found the support to be incredibly helpful.
Mike Triplett and Hilary Gosher have served on my board and offered solid advice and great support. I have also worked with Peter Sobiloff and found him with a wealth of knowledge in sales/marketing. Others within the firm such as Larry Handen, Scott Maxwell (now with OpenView), Deven Parekh and Jeff Horing all have offered support and encouragement.
I believe that when Insight decides to make an investment in you and your company they intend to help you take it to the next level.

Posted by
danwalter1
on 2007-07-07

PUBLIC:

I have found these guys to be a first class group of investors. I have been a part of a company historically that was funded in large part by Insight Ventures and found them to be highly knowledgeable and interested in the business. I think that Mike Triplett, Ben Levin and Jeff Horing were the best and highly "Insightful" in their advice and not overly involved in daily management.

Posted by
jhi247
on 2007-07-05

PUBLIC:

Insight has invested in my firm a few years back. Triplett was appointed to our board. They are tough to do business with - but once on board fair and extremely supportive. In total this was a good experience for us.

Posted by
thermocline
on 2007-05-08

PUBLIC:

A few years back we got a term sheet from these guys and almost took their funding. In the end we turned them down mostly because of our experiences with Jerry Murdock. Every time we met or spoke with him he tried to reduce the original terms. We took another term sheet because we simply felt we couldn't trust the management at their firm. It felt like we were dealing with a used car salesman when we had to deal with Jerry.